


across the stars to find you

by megamegaturtle



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: F/M, Kairi-centric, Slight SoKai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 23:26:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11172300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megamegaturtle/pseuds/megamegaturtle
Summary: kairi goes off on a journey looking for the one person she wants to protect.





	across the stars to find you

Time—it doesn’t move the same way here, she knows. Worlds are a cycle, time repeating and Kairi wonders when does time actually begin—with who, with what? She trains both growing and not, gaining skill, but never moving forward. 

 _Stuck_   _being in last place as she chases after Sora and Riku’s shadows._

Lea is chasing shadows too, a best friend who is no longer here  and someone–he recognizes in her face, but neither have a name for them.  A scattered dream that’s like a far-off memory…a far-off memory that’s like a scattered dream.

(I want to line the pieces up–yours and mine)

She wonders if she can live a thousand lifetimes in cycles, suspended away from everything just like the worlds have been forever, it seems. Time moving forward in each world, each little twinkling star, but never flowing in the grand scheme in things.

Never quite flowing exactly the same where Sora treads, but time never being the same after he leaves. Almost as if he’s the beginning, the longing the universe has been waiting for. 

A heart so open and loving, a place where all is welcomed and Kairi–she reaches to soothe his edges, wanting to be there to help protect him because she knows, she knows, she knows

just how fragile a heart is. 

So, she trains–blood, sweat, and tears–learns magic, learns tactics, learns and learns and learns and learns–      

Until she treks across the stars the find him. 

* * *

There is a homecoming in herself as she slips away into the night, she doesn’t say goodbye, doesn’t leave a note, but prays that Yen Sid and Lea will forgive her.

(They both watch her leave, don herself in armor in the ways of old and send hopes her way for safe travels. She’s stronger than she knows.) 

She travels in the lanes between, in the space between stars and worlds and hopes and dreams. It’s better than being afloat a raft, but a part of her wishes it wasn’t so lonely. 

* * *

Worlds–worlds have their own time, she realizes quickly. They truly are cycles, where princesses she has met don’t remember her per say, their worlds back at the beginning, sometimes at their endings before everything comes back circle. 

Their memories wax and wane as she drifts between places, looking for Sora, searching for Riku–wondering when did the worlds fall out of disarray.

Kairi’s reminded of a story her grandmother told, one she wonders if she heard it for thousand of lifetimes before. A story about how all the worlds were one until they were not because light and darkness could not decide and–

life fell apart, stuck in cycles, never truly growing, just only repeating, just– 

Just being.

* * *

She…finds a castle. Broken and white and sad. With a boy sleeping. In a place that feels familiar, but is not the same, just like the scattered memories of a far-off place. 

(Memories, memories, memories, woven together, destroyed, woven together, destroyed.)

He–reminds her of Roxas, of the boy part of Sora’s heart. 

(She tries to wake him, but he never wakes.)

(She promises to come back another day.)  

* * *

Kairi hears Sora’s name spoken on the wind, on a breeze that permeates through borders and boundaries and worms it’s way into her heart. 

She runs into little silly bears, and savoirs of China; street rats and genies–and time in these worlds move forward with memories, with connections, with– 

The beat of Sora, it seems. With Sora, with Sora. 

* * *

At night, she dreams. Black coats and shadows and–the world, the worlds, the island, everything is ending. Golden eyes that haunt her, beckoning for her to come closer, but she can’t. Won’t. She knows better.

* * *

Kairi meets a Queen without her King and she learns of the meaning of how women work best in helping where others can’t follow.

“We are the backbone,” Queen Minnie says. “We’re the reason for them to come home and we are the hope their hearts need.” 

It’s warm by the firelight, her eyes sleepy as she lays her arms in her hands. “But what if he needs me? What if he gets hurt?”  

Queen Minnie pulls a blanket over her. “Then, sweetie,” she says with a pause. “You do what women do best.”

“What’s that?” 

She smiles in the glowing light, her gentle eyes sparking fierce. “Win wars.” 

* * *

There’s a heartless, a big one–a big one that only comes when someone just gives away to darkness, wants power, wants instead of tries, wants and lets their heart fall to the wayside.

She sees _him_  charge forward. Hears his cry as he draws his blade and heads into battle because someone needs saving. 

She stills for a moment, her heart thudding in her chest. 

She’s dreamed of this moment a thousand times, like a thousand lifetimes where time never flowed, but she feels it now, as the seconds start to turn and life is moving with her and she knows, she knows, she knows, she knows– 

 _Sora_. 

The heartless pins him to the ground, raises it’s other hand and– 

She races forward, her armor clinking as she runs, her keyblade drawn and she leaps and charges. Knocking her blade against its fist and pushing the monster back.

Dazed the monster sits weak on the ground as Goofy and Donald surge forward, lashing blow after blow. 

She’s about to join in, make it a quick ending when Sora grabs her arm. 

He’s grown taller, his baby fat gone from his face. 

“Who are you?” he asks, bewildered and gesturing to her armor. 

A part of her wants to throw her helmet off and hug him, hold him close and steal him away, but the heartless roars its ugly head and–

(maybe she’s not ready to tell him just yet.)

“Just someone who’s travelled across the stars find you,” she says, her voice muffled by her helmet. 

“What?”

She laughs. “No time!”

And charges forward, her heart happy as she helps protect the one she holds dear, time on her side, moving her forward, moving the forward to something new, something without a cycle–

Something she has never lived before. 


End file.
